


It is what it is

by Ruta



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Friendship/Love, Post-Episode: s04e03 The Final Problem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-28
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-20 08:29:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9482816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruta/pseuds/Ruta
Summary: [Rosie says something, Molly is crashed by guilt and Sherlock helps her to overcome it.]Sherlock rubs a finger over her wet cheek, in the dim light of the room his face is a mask of refractions and mixed feelings: affection, compassion, concern, sadness. "We are what we are, Molly Hooper."





	

_  
_ _I need to talk. Can you come? I’m home. MH_

Molly looks at the blank screen of the mobile phone in her hand.

The night is drafty, the baby monitor placed on the workbench of the kitchen is silent, a sign that Rosie sleeps peacefully in the guest room that she has converted into a nursery. All is quiet inside the clean and tidy apartment. The absence of visible chaos, the atmosphere of rarefied peace stride much more intensely with the ferment of her thoughts, the tumult of emotions that are devouring her from inside. She feels her eyes burning and a sensation of obstruction in the throat. She would like to get away and at the same time wouldn't want to be anywhere else. She has already felt a similar sentiment in the past. Once, many years ago, when she killed a man to save his life.

A buzz - the vibration that accompanies the arrival of a text - makes re-open her eyes suddenly. Molly doesn’t have time to enter the access code that the phone vibrates again in her hands - one, two, three times. On the screen appear the previews of a sequence of messages sent in quick succession by the same number, the same person.

_Are you alright? SH_

_I'm coming. SH_

_On my way. SH_

Molly burst into a little laugh of disbelief, while reading quickly the others texts that follow, the message tone more and more agitated. She can imagine him in Baker Street. Sprint down the flights of stairs, hang the robe over the hanger and put on the Belstaff as a knight who wears his armor before goes into battle. She can imagine him while calling a taxi, he begins to set off and meanwhile assesses the options with his hyperbolic mind: decides that no, it's too late to take the Tube and that, on balance, it is better to walk to her flat. Fifteen minutes, after all, are not so many –

Someone is knocking at the front door.

Molly frowns, confused. It hasn’t been more than a couple of minutes. It's impossible, logistically, that Sherlock is already there. Unless -

 _Oh_. Oh, dear.

 _Unless_.

 *

Sherlock is parked in her living room, eyeing with inscrutable air the view on the open kitchen.

Inscrutable to anyone else. Not to her, who knows, who remembers. (A bad day. A phone that has only worsened it. A confession torn with pain.)

 _Perfect_ , she thinks and rests with just more force than necessary the cups of tea on the table.

Sherlock's eyes are catalyzed by the noise, by her presence and regain a thickness that deductions - memories - usually have the power to weaken.

"You didn’t have to run," she says.

Sherlock doesn’t seem to understand. It's almost amusing to note the reversal of roles: once, he was able to lay bare every one of her desire, thought, action. She has learned to do the same, only that her attention focuses on feelings - the tiny signs behind his soft expressions.

"Your case," she explains patiently. "The case that you were working out. I could have waited. It wasn’t necessary that you rushed here."

His confusion, now, is palpable. It turns into dismay. He allows himself a moment to look at her with a kind of bewildered astonishment, with that expression whose implied meaning is an indictment of her intelligence, before shaking his head. 'Don’t be absurd, Molly', it seems to say.

"It was nothing important," he says, and without looking directly into her eyes, between sips of tea, he mumbles 'The Worshipful Company of Butchers', ‘not even a full nine' and ‘John and Lestrade are dealing with it, which is not an insurance, but still...'.

Her deductions were wrong and blowing away the steam from the rim of her cup, Molly deduces by his appearance what Sherlock would _observe_ , but not _see_. No need of a clinical eye to notice the palpable relief on his long face. She had already guessed from the imperceptible sigh that left his lips when she opened the door, from the feverish way in which his eye had reviewed the environment. She has seen it and has given him a moment to regain control. She offered him tea. And now they are standing in front of the fireplace while carefully avoid talking or exchanging a closer look to the other.

[ _She'd like to tell him he shouldn’t feel uncomfortable or embarrassed. She would like to reassure him that their relationship has not been compromised or damaged. Yes, something has cracked, but not beyond repair. She would like to tell him that there is no need of excuses, they have known each other for ten years -_ God! A third of her life _\- and have long past that stage. She would like to explain to him that he shouldn’t feel guilty, he did what he had, he saved her life. But that's not the reason why she called him in the middle of the night_.]

"We need to talk," she says, pursing her lips. "The reason I asked you to come concerns Rosie."  

*  

He bends over the crib and observes her rest. Rosie is asleep, oblivious to the turmoil that harbors in the heart of her godmother and, largely, in that of her godfather. When she announced the news, he didn’t react as she had expected. There was no anger in his eyes, but a sadness so piercing that broke her heart.

"It’s not your fault," he says with kindness and even if consciously Molly recognizes the true nature of his reassurance, on a subconscious level she cannot help but feel what inflates her chest and squeezes her stomach.

 _It is not her fault_ , she repeats to herself. _It is not her fault_. Yet it is so unfair, so cruel that Rosie has called her 'Mum'. And what's even more dishonest is that she, in fact -

Sherlock touches with the thumb Rosie’s forehead, gently pulls a curl behind and the tears that Molly has held until then stream down her face.

When he turns around with an expression of unbearable torment - mourning Mary who reappeared as an object exhumed from the sea floor, the loss that goes with it like a phantom pain - she moves to his side. She searches his hand, and when she finds it, he holds her back. His grip is warm and encouraging.

"It is what it is," she hears him murmur at some point, and when she lifts her head, she discovers that he is staring at her.

"Her mother died. She shouldn’t-" she bites her lower lip. "It's not _fair_."

"It’s not fair, but you cannot change the reality of the facts. No one can. It is not how the world works. You're not her mother, Molly, but you've become. Rosamund chose you, Mary has chosen you."

Molly angrily wipes her tears with the back of the hand. "I was happy," she says with a tone of provocation, almost daring him to look at her with disgust and revulsion. "Before thinking of Mary, for a moment, when she called me like that, I was happy." This makes her a bad person? Not necessarily, but it is still painful and unpleasant.

Sherlock rubs a finger over her wet cheek, in the dim light of the room his face is a mask of refractions and mixed feelings: affection, compassion, concern, sadness. "We are what we are, Molly Hooper."

“And what are we, exactly?"

He bends down to touch her temple with a kiss that soothes the pain and heals it at the same time. His hand moves behind her head, holds it. "Humans."

Smashed by the liberating effect of his words, Molly leans her forehead against his shoulder. "Is it not scary?" She asks.

He strokes her hair, his tone is distant and rich, contemplative. "Not as much as I feared."

Without any of them add another word, they remain close, enough to heat up and brushing against each other, enough to give the impression that, together, maybe, _maybe_ that weight can become almost bearable, improbably easier to carry.


End file.
